Plantronics - Voyager Legend (Poly) - Bluetooth Single-Ear (Monaural) Headset - Connect to your PC, Mac, Tablet and/or Cell Phone - Noise Canceling,Black

This is my second review on this product. My previous review written several years ago is attached after this review.My trouble with headsets is that I keep losing them. This is my third Plantronics Legend, and perhaps my seventh or eighth Bluetooth headset.Plantronics Legend has been around for a while. And quite expensive. After losing my second Plantronics Legend, I went for cheaper units. All of them are latest models and very highly rated by users.But after running through several of them, I went back to Plantronics Legend.Why? Because there is one extremely important feature that is missing on all other Bluetooth headsets:The smart sensor.With headsets that don't have a smart sensor, if you take off the headset but forget to turn it off (which I tend to do), the Bluetooth connection being still there, you don't hear the ring if somebody calls (because the call goes to the headset which you are not wearing), and you would miss the call.Or, sometimes if you happen to see on the screen an incoming call, and you take the call but don't hear anything. In a moment of confusion, you frantically try to figure out what's going on. By the time you have figured out (that the call is going to the headset which you are not wearing), and change it to the phone speaker, it is too late.You get the picture.With Plantronics Legend, its smart a sensor detects if you are wearing it or not, and when you are not wearing it, automatically directs the call to your phone's ring so you won't miss the call.Now, if you use your mobile phone as a phone at all, I can't think of a more critical function in this. It can cause serious troubles in your life or your job by missing calls.So far, Plantronics Legend is the only Bluetooth headset I know to have this smart sensor feature. (Please tell me if you know other units that do the same as well. I would be glad to know. )For this reason alone, I think I'm stuck with Plantronics Legend. I would probably have to use it even if it were a so-so product otherwise, but the fact that this headset performs superbly in other aspects as well is just fortunate.Other strong features worth mentioning:(1) 7 hour battery time compared to 2-4 hours of the units I tried. Now this is because the Legend has a larger battery, and as a result, it is relatively heavy and bulky. I find that to be a worthy trade-off for the longer battery life. It is probably pushing the limit, but I like the balance in strikes.(2) Plantronics has an excellent management system. Versatile charging solutions including a charging station and a very simple USB cable (with magnetic connector of course). The USB cable also offers the USB connection with the PC for settings.(3) Very useful mobile app and also an app on PC that make the management of the headset easy, including settings and firmware updates. It also has a mobile app that provides a comprehensive device management including settings.(4) It has the most accessible and easiest to use on and off switch. It is a straightforward slider easy to access, easy to operate, and instantly effective, rather than many other units that have an ambiguous button that requires long hard press without distinct confirmation until you have finished the prolonged process and heard some audio confirmation.(5) The volume control is also the most accessible and easiest to operate. You don't need to touch and feel to find where is up and where is down. It is just one distinct button that toggles up and down. You can operate it with confidence while wearing the headset without looking at it.There are also some weaknesses of this phone:(1) It is not the most comfortable Bluetooth headset to wear. The earpiece does not fit very well. I tried all three alternative sizes, but none worked very well. It's OK, but many other headsets do better than this.(2) The smart sensor isn't perfect. Although it does the main thing very well which is to forward the call to the phone when you're not wearing the headset, it does this only for phone calls. I wish it would also do the auto directing for audio stream and other playing. But it doesn't. Music playing, video playing, etc., still goes to the headset even if you're not wearing it. But this is much less of a problem because unlike incoming phone calls, there is never a moment of imperative in playing music or videos, as you're alone and not interacting with others.The following is my original review.I am picky on my headsets. I tried two Bluetooth headsets before and returned them because I could always find some unbearable problems with them. This is my third try, and it's perfect. Sound quality, control design and layout, and the comfortableness, are all very likable and hard to pick on. Unless this thing breaks down unexpectedly in the next month, it's a keeper.The body could be smaller, but there is a good reason why it is hard to make these smaller. It's not the electronics that makes this bulky, but almost entirely the battery, which, as a technology, has unfortunately fallen behind the electronics, and as a result every electronic device is suffering.Some users complain about this not being "plug-and-play". If by "plug-and-play" these users mean one should be able to put the headset on an ear and start to hear from a device (phone or PC, etc.) right away without any pairing procedure, let me tell you it is a wrong expectation (not just unrealistic, but wrong).This is not a technical problem, but a human problem. It is actually not difficult to make a Bluetooth headset that could connect to a nearby device automatically and instantly, but the problem is that you would end up with an unusable product, because you Bluetooth headset would automatically connect with any device that is nearby, causing both security issues and confusion.The little bit of inconvenience in requiring a certain procedure of "pairing" is necessary. It is not because the engineers are unable to make Bluetooth devices that can talk to each other more easily, but because of security concerns. It is a universal problem for wireless technology. Every wireless device has this inherent problem. (That's by the way also why Wi-Fi has been such a headache for many people to set up.) In order for a wireless device to work properly, you've got to have, by design, some kind of a barrier for the user to overcome, such that the barrier would work as an inherent proof of legitimacy.So don't complain. Just happy pairing. And this headset has already made it as simple as the current technology allows.

(Copied and pasted here)Update (2023-07-02):I'm leaving my previous review intact below and adding a few thoughts. Most of it still applies to some extent. But ... this is the best headset I've ever had for my purpose, and I still can't find anything better. I don't talk on the phone any other way.Better? Noise cancellation and sound quality has been good on most of the 11 I've owned (yes, 11). I think some were counterfeits. Everyone can understand me on the other end, and many I've talked to had no clue I was going down the road (even with the windows down). The last one I bought was in December of 2022. I have two that still work fine. I don't know if the most recent failure is one of the more recent purchases, or a very old one. It literally wore out. The last two that failed lost their skins. I bought my first one in April of 2016.I only have one reason for not upgrading to the 5200. I despise micro-USB. I love the magnet connector for these. I can just reach up and pull it off the charge cable and put it on my ear while driving with minimal distraction. I carry two on the truck within reach so that when one battery gets low the other is right there. I can even snap the charger on the headset without having to see it. Try that with micro-USB. So, if you have time and patience to fiddle with micro-USB, by all means get the 5200. It's a better headset in every way, except for that.Poly seems to have migrated this headset over much better than they had at the beginning of 2023. There's a new app, and it works. I haven't tried to update the headset online with a PC since the end of 2022.If Poly would update this headset's internals, and leave the size, shape, and charger intact, I'd pay more for that one than another one of these. If I knew that they had, I'd be buying one from their website. There are numerous SKUs of this headset. There's no way for us mere mortals to know what the differences are, if any. I suspect that one or two of the FFP models were counterfeit, but I'm going to gamble again. The warranty will be out long before any problems become apparent. Then I'll buy another one ... or the Voyager Legend 2024.I am buying another one so I'll have two spares. Only 2 of the 11 are left. I started keeping one at home too. My wife is still using a 5200, but she has a couple of these ... somewhere.Previously (circa January 2023):I think I've purchased my last Legend, even though I haven't tested it yet. It's time to find something better, and that's going to be hard. My ear fits these too well.Be aware that this headset appears to no longer be fully supported online. Plantronics is now Poly. I just downloaded the latest version of Plantronics Hub from Poly's support site, which appears to be the remnants of Plantronics support site. When I run the Plantronics Hub and try to update the headset I get, "Plantronics Hub is unable to connect to the server." I suspect that the update server no longer exists, though I can't be sure. The most recent firmware version is v.109, and may be the last one. That doesn't take away from the quality and usefulness of the headset at all. It's still the best noise-cancelling headset I can comfortably wear. Driving a truck I wear one all the time.Having said all that, I have had issues with some of the ones I've purchased more recently, and my wife has too. Some of them don't cancel noise as well as others, though they all come up as the same product, and the same firmware version. Early on, they were all flawless. Lately, they're not. We've had a couple that failed before we managed to destroy them ourselves. And it's possible that more modern devices don't connect as well to the older version of bluetooth these support. This is a very good legacy product.Last note: My wife has one of the newer 5200s, and didn't like it nearly as well as these.